Dynamische Strukturen, 1960

CommentaryIn the mid-nineteen-fifties, Heinz Mack started exploring Art Informel painting. After meeting Jean Tinguely and Yves Klein, however, he once again distanced himself from this approach and painted instead ›Dynamische Strukturen‹ (Dynamic Structures) in black or white on monochrome canvases. The pictorial gesture was banished from the picture; taking the place of a composition was a rhythmic progression from left to right. The vibration of the light that was to become a central theme in Mack’s later kinetic objects was here still represented by white paint against a black ground. In 1958, Mack detailed his vision in the first issue of ›ZERO‹ magazine: »Painting, as a dynamic structure that is fully self-sufficient, demonstrates a new vitality of painterly nuance! This is only achieved when it finds its pictorial corollary. Only through an acutely practiced painterly discipline can color be dematerialized, its purity visually apparent.«

In the mid-nineteen-fifties, Heinz Mack started exploring Art Informel painting. After meeting Jean Tinguely and Yves Klein, however, he once again distanced himself from this approach and painted instead ›Dynamische Strukturen‹ (Dynamic Structures) in black or white on monochrome canvases. The pictorial gesture was banished from the picture; taking the place of a composition was a rhythmic progression from left to right. The vibration of the light that was to become a central theme in Mack’s later kinetic objects was here still represented by white paint against a black ground. In 1958, Mack detailed his vision in the first issue of ›ZERO‹ magazine: »Painting, as a dynamic structure that is fully self-sufficient, demonstrates a new vitality of painterly nuance! This is only achieved when it finds its pictorial corollary. Only through an acutely practiced painterly discipline can color be dematerialized, its purity visually apparent.«